In a move to broaden their product line and cover the full spectrum of the market, ATI Technologies has announced the Radeon 7000 and 7200 line of 2D/3D graphics boards. Aimed at the ultra-low-end of the market, it is doubtful that these cards would be offered for any Mac line except for the iMac series, but if Apple wants to step up from the existing Rage 128 chips in those machines to another ATI solution, the 7000 and 7200 seem an obvious choice.

Here is the press release:

ATI Technologies Inc. (TSE:ATY, NASDAQ:ATYT), a world leader in the supply of graphics, video and multimedia solutions, today introduced two new additions to RADEON(TM), the world's most powerful and innovative family of graphics chip and board technologies, the entry-level RADEON(TM) 7000 and the value-line RADEON(TM) 7200 desktop graphics boards.

With manufacturers' suggested retail prices (MSRPs) under (US) $100, the new products are designed to offer value-minded customers solid graphics performance.

The RADEON 7000 desktop graphics board, based on the RADEON 7000 chip (previously known as the RADEON VE chip), is a 32MB (megabytes) DDR (double data rate) board, providing solid 2D and 3D performance, excellent visual quality and DVD playback. At an MSRP of (US) $79, the RADEON 7000 graphics card offers more features and value than any other graphics card in this price range. (1)

The RADEON 7200 is a 64MB SDR (single data rate) graphics board, and offers such features as hardware transformation, clipping and lighting (T&L) geometry, CHARISMA ENGINE(TM), and an on-chip hardware DVD decoder. The RADEON 7200 is based on the RADEON 7200 chip (previously known as the RADEON chip). It has an MSRP of (US) $99.

Other members of the RADEON(TM) desktop PC graphics processor family include the recently-announced RADEON(TM) 8500 and RADEON(TM) 7500 desktop PC graphics boards. With RADEON 7000 and 7200, the expanded RADEON(TM) family will offer ATI customers solid solutions at every price and performance level.

"The RADEON 7000 graphics board is ideal for users, both at work and at home, who are using their computers for Internet access, e-mail and applications with graphics requirements. The RADEON 7200 will allow home and small business users and consumers to handle graphic-intense applications with ease," said Hangmei Chen, Product Manager, Desktop Marketing, ATI Technologies Inc. "The features found in these two new value-oriented products, each priced below (US) $100, were previously only available in premium-priced cards. These two additions to the RADEON family will enhance ATI's complete product offering for our consumers looking for good deals for the Christmas season."

At just $79 and $99 (projected retail cost, which may be even lower when these boards reach market) these are obviously not hardcore gaming solutions, but the excellent 2D/3D feature set of the Radeon coupled with 32 or 64 MB of DDR RAM would be a blazing-fast card compared to current iMac chipsets. Both are based on the Radeon chipset, and the 7200 certainly be the lowest-cost solution on the market to offer Hardware Transform and Lighting and 64 MB of DDR RAM, undercutting even NVIDIA's GeForce MX series.ATI Announces Radeon 7000,7200